India, Dec. 4 -- The loss was 'dew', especially when one considers how close South Africa ran India in the first ODI at Ranchi. Early wickets had then done the trick for the hosts but in the absence of those at Raipur on Wednesday, classy knocks by Aiden Markram (110), Matthew Breetzke (68) and Dewald Brevis (54) helped the visitors level the series and take it into the decider.

In a way, India might want to put the defeat down to luck. They were put in to bat after losing the toss for the 20th consecutive time in ODI cricket. The odds of that happening are 1 in 1,048,576 i.e 0.00000095. And given the kind of conditions the match was played in, the toss turned out to be the key.

India didn't do much wrong while batting. They put on 358/...